Silent Hill: Deception
by Servedwithblood
Summary: Isabel awakes in a strange room. She figures out that physics doesn't apply to where she is. Is what she sees real? Because, when she closes her eyes, everything changes. Her life's puzzle has only just begun.
1. Chapter 1

**Silent Hill: Deception**

Life only seems like a beaten butterfly, broken and bleeding, at times torn from its sanctuary in a lost amazement, disillusionment. Validation of life can only be determined through an analysis of the five senses. The minds recordings are deceiving. Yet, even then, does all that seem to be true really exist?

"_Isabel."_

"_Isabel."_

"_**ISABEL**__."_

A quiet whisper descended into a maddening wave of rage as Isabel woke from her sleep. Quickly, she felt as if she wasn't alone. Maybe she was, maybe she wasn't, but what she saw, she knew, couldn't be real.

The quiet tranquil home in the New York countryside resembled the remnants of a battle field abandoned long ago. Her home was no more, something malicious had taken over. The walls were degrading and dampened with moisture. The scent of rotting wood was undeniable. Where her bed used to be, what she was laying on, was the very rotting wood she smelled intensely. She stood and examined where she once laid. There was a dark almost shadow-like image of her resting position on the wood.

"How long have I been here? Discoloration doesn't happen overnight."

A single window adorned the wall along side a grimy door in the small square room. Besides Isabel, the room was vacant. Already, something felt wrong, _so_ wrong. Instinctually, like she did every time she woke up, Isabel glanced out the window.

"A fog? It's thick. I haven't seen anything like this since I was a child!"

It felt as if something was groping around inside her skull, searching for the key to begin chipping away at her soul, but she wasn't tainted enough yet because she hasn't really entered the town Silent Hill.

" Agh."

Isabel moaned is a confused daze. She rubbed her closed eyes in an attempt to wash away the absurdity. One foot in front of the other, she walked in the direction of the door, still rubbing her tired face.

She kept walking, walking, and walking. No door, no wall, nothing to stop her between madness and sanity. Realizing this, she opened her eyes. Astounded, she gasped,

"How did I get outside?" She turned around.

Behind Isabel was the little home she awoke in. The door was still shut, _cemented_ shut and yet she was nearly twenty feet away from the door and she never opened it. Tentatively, she stepped towards the door, dumbfounded.

"What?"

Her hand rested on the solid cool cement. It was real, right? She sighed whiled lowering her head, closing her eyes once more. The very solid surface her hand touched faded away. It was gone. Simotaneously, her eyes shot open. Her right hand was still touching the oddly cemented door.

"It wasn't there a second ago! What's happening?"

She knew, in that split second of horror when the door momentarily ceased to exist, her whole body leaned forward because the door was her support. Her central gravity was thrown off and, as fast as it went, reassured its normality _when she opened her eyes_.

"Oh, man...I'm in for it, big time."

Isabel's journey into Silent Hill has just begun and it's mysteries have yet to be revealed or in the least bit understood.


	2. Chapter 2

** Silent Hill: Deception**

** Chapter Two: More Moisture**

_The human mind is a wonder to the world. It's vast complexities are not completely understood, or used. Besides the human mind, there are other elaborate things like the Pyramids of Egypt and certain __places. How they have become known as what they are is a mystery that expands the galaxies into the darkest and deepest catacombs of space, unknown. It may have even reached the Gods in hidden suns and clouds, or the Devil himself in chthonic pits endless and foreboding. Where do the answers come from?_

"_Isabel."_

I know that voice. Isabel thought to herself. She deliberately decided against turning around because the sound was heard from every direction. Shuddering slightly, her previous thoughts of not being alone arose in her head like a wandering balloon released from a child's grasp. Suddenly, she felt the urge to be away from the unusual room, it gave her an uneasy feeling.

Upon nothing else to choose from, she thought it would be smart to follow the pathway from the house. It seemed long, but who knows. The concentrated mass of moisture was obstructing the view. Weary, she trudged on.

"This is messed up."

She recalled the events in her mind from the nights before. They were clear and distinct. After a long Saturday spent at home, she did nothing but eat and sleep. She remembered the soft texture that was her blanket and the light feathery cushioning of her pillows. Nothing appeared to be out of the normal. It was _her_ house, _her_ room, _her_ life. The memories were intact, degraded only by time.

"What could have happened to change all this? How did I get here? Oh..."

She tried to remember anything unusual. Isabel was still the same 22 year old she was yesterday. Her lush brown hair and accenting deep green eyes were still there. A hand drifted through the soft hair that had accumulated minuscule amounts of moisture. At the tips of hair strands, her hand stopped, frozen like a framed picture on the wall. There was a noise, but it was too far away to induce a conclusion.

Frowning, it was sensed again. Was it closer? The thought of what _it_ was began to frightened her and she quickened her pace. Isabel was silently thanking god she had sneakers on and a hooded sweatshirt because it was bitter cold and she had to run even though she didn't wear those items the night before. She never slept with shoes on just like any normal sane person in the world.

The constant expected noises from her shoes grasping the pavement and her own increasing heart rate joined her breath in a symphonic orchestra of sounds. Running with the fog felt like the incident in the irregular room when she didn't touch the wall. It felt interminable. The road was a growing eerie friend, a familiar presence in an unfamiliar place.

Left, right, left, right...left...right...left...

"Hey, hey you! Come back here!"

Isabel dedicated a moment in her life to chasing down a person she vaguely saw. It rounded a corner and she swiftly pursued it trying to grab the persons' attention with more pointless words. As she ran the corner quickly, too quickly, she ran into the person, but it wasn't a person.

Its odd quirky movements reminded her of the rejected people from school. It walked awkwardly, knees bent and on its ankles. The arms were wrapped tightly and securely around the torso as if a dingy strait jacket was holding them in place. Back and forth, the head swayed unevenly like a wobbly moistened spaghetti noodle.

Startled, Isabel pushed it away. Then the creature arched its spine and sprayed acid, but Isabel saw the peril of the offence and dropped to the floor, hands protecting her head, and rolled. She scrambled to her feet after the acidic spray barely missed her and began to run with her head turned behind her shoulder cursing with every step. She was unarmed and vulnerable. Then she ran strait into a sign.

"Rosewater Park." She read it aloud and jumped back onto her feat because the monster was gaining on her, she hadn't gotten far.

In periphery vision of her eyes, something black and shiny caught her eyes and ran to it. A gun was on the ground. She picked it up and aimed. Six rounds went into the creature. Isabel was so scared she couldn't control the intense shaking of her fingers, but nonetheless the being went limp and sprawled itself on the floor. A pool of blood accommodated its body.

"Blood? Does that _thing_ even need blood?" Pausing for air, she continued to talk to herself. "What was that...?"

Lucky for her, the massive amounts of television viewing had unwillingly given her the knowledge to dodge and fire a gun. Yet, bullets were limited. There was a single silver bullet left and a single wit still existing in her skull, but the breathing was still rapid and cacophonic with the waves on the distant shore.

"Water...?"

She just realized she was at a park with water. The creature's bodily functions distracted her hearing from distinguishing the waves nearby.

Water, it always seems to be nearby so close, almost like home to a desiccated corpse.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three: Balloons**

_Balloons escaping from the released hands of people, carrying wishes in hope that someone will grant them, embark on a weary journey. Where do they go? Their travel begins on Earth and it ends...does it end? Maybe that's what life is like, running in sequential circles, an incessant journey for the truth and for sanity. The more people venture, the more life seems like a chimerical fantasy where the laws of physics don't apply. Maybe that interminable path ends here, on Earth, in a certain special place where insanity is sanity._

_

* * *

  
_

The push and pull of the tides, ying and yang, reverberated softly in her ears. Isabel started to believe she was losing it. A number of questions flooded through her head without an end.

Where am I? What's going on? How did I get here? What was that? Am I really alive? Is this hell? Am I even on Earth anymore?

She answered her questions aloud in three concise words, "I don't know."

The inability to answer her own questions was frustrating and sparked a weak flame of fury. Isabel hated not knowing the answers.

"I need a seat." Isabel wandered to the nearest bench, which, unusually, looked new although the rest of the buildings she passed looked abandoned and deteriorated.

Like a screech in the middle of the night from a victimized animal fallen to prey, a headache emerged from the cluster of thoughts. There was an almost silent ring in her ear, high pitched and constant, but it only lasted a few seconds, which was long enough for her to close her eyes for a significant amount of time.

With her eyes closed, she grabbed the edge of the bench with both hands dropping the gun. It was there, matter existing in the universe. Then she made the mistake of standing up to reach for the gun that sounded like it fell quite a ways away. The one single step in that world unseen was long enough to bring her far away from where she just momentarily was. Isabel opened her eyes.

"Oh, no."

It was dark, almost everything was black as soot. A few Holy Candles were placed on the ground. A wisp of air flickered the soft candle lights placed under a hole in one of the four walls that confined her to that space. There was a small necklace on the ground that caught her eye and she picked it up. She wasn't quite sure what it was, but put it around her head.

"Wow. What could have done this?" Isabel's face greeted the barren hole.

It looked inhumane. Nothing normal could have done this. It was choppy and little pieces of the cemented wall fell when she touched it. Red ritual markings surrounded the hole in a circle, neat, bloody and precise. It was as if two separate things created this hole as one. What creature they were, Isabel had no desire to learn.

Upon closer inspection, Isabel determined the blood that made up the circle to be dry. Touching it wasn't in her interests. Although, it brought up the question, why? Why was she here? Why was there blood on the wall?

"Why me?"

She slumped to the floor, careful not to close her eyes again. This was strange, but there could be even stranger places to be. Gasping, she turned to face the hole.

_Was there wind coming from inside the hole?_

Waiting, she felt no other faint disturbances in the air. The flames were still.

"How did I get in here?"

Looking all around, the only entrance or exit was the hole. It smelled like a damp old watery smell, like inside a basement after a flood and something else. Isabel sniffed.

"It smells familiar."

Another whiff and her mind was made up. It was the same small room she found herself in earlier. Just, this time, it was black and the mysterious hole covered the cemented door. There was the remaining scent of decaying wood.

"How did I get back in here?" Thinking of the freshly lit candles she said, "_Who_ was in here before me?"

Isabel contemplated the hole watching it intently hoping for some sort of an answer. One came in the form of strange noises.

"Is that...is that...no it can't be, is that a baby crying?"

It sounded like and infant engulfed in misery and it wouldn't stop shedding tears. The faded tone of falling water droplets increased in volume and increased in quantity. Their ghosts mocked the ears of Isabel testing her sanity once again. The absence of quietness can drive a person insane as well as constant silence.

"AH! Why won't it stop!" She held her head ans squinted her eyes. She was becoming more and more dreadful of what else could happen if she closed them.

The baby's crying and the repetitive drum-like drops of water were pounding right through her skull. It was a fight. Something wanted her to close her eyes, but she refused to. Though, neither option was too friendly as the world around her seemed to spin and spin and gravity seemed to float away.

Her body was weak and so was her mind. She fell onto her back from her knees emitting a tender thud. Harder, harder, faster, faster, the breathing wasn't healthy. No, not any more. Her eyes started to blur and she blinked faster in response. The walls appeared to be melting, blending, into one another. Tilting her head up, she looked towards the hole.

In all this madness, cacophony of sounds, and visages, there was a little red balloon floating in the hole. Just there, motionless and waiting. Isabel attempted to sit up, even with the entire world appearing to turn into the eye of a hurricane, but something pulled her back down and the balloon exploded along with something else. A photograph fell onto her chest. There was something written on it, but she was forced to close her eyes and all the noises and insanity evanesced at that moment. Her head regained normality and her almost sick stomach retained harmony.

Then there was silence. Complete and utter silence.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four: Right and Wrong**

_Some things are never meant to be spoken, and some aren't spoken at all. Blank white paper rest on tables only awaiting the arrival of some media to form existence and completion. Eager minds wait for that same reason, wholeness. Many are the minds that desire attention, few are those who receive it. What for? Why is attention this burning desire that rests inside each and every soul? Is it a goal that drive people or is it a confirmation that one is alive and needed, purpose. Children of all ages suffer from this, and want to be acknowledged. They are so young, so innocent, and have yet to experience the tenebrous twists in life's plot._

_

* * *

  
_

"_Isabel....Isabel..."_

A soft giggle emanated from the voice that spoke her name. Isabel woke once more to find herself in unfamiliar territory. She was in a bathroom, a lurid scene.

"Ah!"

Isabel was startled noticing the blood everywhere. It decorated the walls in quick spontaneous spurts. She was in a bathtub, arms hanging over its grimy edges. The inside of the bathtub was covered in a layer of fresh blood; the first thought that scurried its way into her head wondered if it was hers. Sitting up promptly, she checked herself and released a sigh of relief.

"Oh, thank God it's not mine."

Spotless, except for what was soaked into the clothing from the crimson liquid in the tub. There were small hand prints, in blood, up and down the walls, on the ceiling, on the floor and on the mirror. The mirror...Isabel's eyes locked onto the mirror. The photograph that fell on her previously, before she wound up in the bathroom, was on the mirror. It peaked her interest and she stood.

"Oh man...my head."

The sudden shift of weight caused her to loose balance, but only for a moment. Yet, her head still hurt insanely. From what, she wasn't quite sure. Looking at the picture, it was of an infant wrapped in blankets. It has the feeling of dread on its face and sorrow in its eyes poor innocent eyes. Just by that, a person could tell the child suffered. The child's body rested on a bed in pure white. Isabel was overall saddened by the image, but had no idea what it's relevance was. Although,

"It looks familiar."

Isabel gazed into her own terrified weary green eyes after taking down the picture and putting it in a pocket. Bags formed under her eyes long ago. Her black outs barely qualified as sleep and the unremitting stress of fear wasn't helping her too much either. Her skin was haggard and frail. Isabel always thought she had skin that aged horribly. She looked at least five to ten years older than what she really was at any given point in time. It was her mother's fault. She had the faulty genes. Isabel had teased her about it when she still lived at home.

"Wait, why did I move out of there?"

As hard as she tried, the memories wouldn't return to the womb of which they were born in. Little unimportant fragments of memory were intact, but the more important things were gone. Only some teenage years stood still and childhood memories remained, but the past few years were nonexistent. She knew there was more to her than she saw in the clouded old mirror before her face.

Blinking a couple more times, she left the bloody bathroom, null to its gory affects. They felt familiar, tolerable, in a way, but she felt like she was being watched. From the view of a regular, slightly aged and degraded, hotel bedroom, her eyes switched to the bathroom catching a shadow, a child's shadow, and turned on the ball of her feet. She was quick, but not quick enough.

"Whatever it was, it's gone." Isabel was satisfied with her examination and walked back into the bedroom settling her heartbeat.

"_Isabel."_ Only seconds after she turned around, a child's voice sounded out her name, a calling.

_I know there wasn't anyone in that room. I just checked and no one was in with me..._

Her heart skipped an unwilling beat. Hand on the doorframe, she looked in again.

"Nothing? Wait no, there is something."

The mirror had moved opening up into a cabinet. A crudely drawn stick figure of a person with a pyramid for a head was drawn in blood with 'BEHIND' marked below it. In the half of the sliding mirror that was still visible, she saw nothing and turned around.

"There's nothing here. Behind?"

She swerved around again. The same answer greeted her in the face. Nothing but the blood on the walls, and the old damp scent that hasn't left her nostrils since she woke up in the room, was there.

"Behind? What could that mean?"

Instantaneously, she remembered the writing on the photograph in the black room she was in earlier. She hadn't gotten a chance to read it before she blacked out. Isabel puled it out of her pocket and turned it around.

"_Where is the light in Silent Hill? Is it lost, or is it hidden?_"

The message only progressed her confusion.

"Silent Hill."

The worlds rolled off her tongue, accustomed to it as if said before a number of times.

"Is that where I am?"

A sinking feeling churned in her stomach. She knew Silent Hill was where she stood and it didn't put her fear at rest, not in the very least. Hidden memories were begging to regain remembrance at her brain's door, but it was locked and locked hard.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five: Lullabies**

_Imagine a dark room. What do you see? Is it full of fear, or wonders of the beyond? Maybe this room can be compared to the inner workings of the mind. It only reveals what's needed at the right moment. Not everything is tangible, not at first, but throughout time even the most faded of memories and thoughts are artworks of knowledge._

* * *

"Silent Hill. Silent Hill..." Isabel's voice trailed off.

Someone was humming. As she neared the door, the voice grew louder and the tune caused Isabel to softly sing its lyrics.

"Go to sleep. Go to sleep. Go to sleep little baby..."

Just then, Isabel had an image play, like a movie, in her head. She saw a woman holding a baby, the one from the picture, lovingly, singing that same tune. Though she couldn't see the woman's eyes, she could tell it was her, crying. The baby was nodding off into slumber comfortably and then there was a knock on the child's door. The feelings of dread, sorrow and fear cascaded upon her mind, and her partially shadowed face was ridden with horror. The door crashed to the floor, some of it in broken pieces, and bright light shined in through the gaping hole. Woken, the baby in white cried. The last visual was of the child being ripped out of her hold, forever gone.

"Hello?" The lady's voice that sang the tune stopped, reeling Isabel back from her sea of memories.

"Hello?"

Isabel answered heading in the general direction of her voice. Opening the door she saw the hallway of a horribly mistreated building. There was an enormous hole in the wooden planks. One door had a hole in it and Isabel thought she should check it out.

"No one comes to visit anymore."

The voice was weary. An eyebrow raised on Isabel's dreary face.

"Hello? I'm Isabel."

No reply.

"Well...I was wondering if you could tell me where I am."

No reply.

"Hello?"

Without another reply, Isabel decided to leave, it wasn't worth the time. Turning around, the woman spoke up again.

"What's that in your pocket. Is it one of my memories? Did you come here to bring it back to me?"

The photograph was in her back pocket sticking out. Isabel reached for it.

"I'm sorry, I didn't know it was yours."

She held it in the hole and the woman's frail hand took it. Only after a moment's glance, the lady handed it back.

"It's not mine."

"Not yours? I don't think it is mine."

Disregarding her last statement, the woman spoke up.

"You have a nice child. He has your eyes."

"But, I don't have a kid. At least, I don't think I do..."

Isabel whispered the last part thinking of the memory that floated in her head only moments before.

"Please," The mysterious woman sounded, "Leave me be."

Isabel reasoned she triggered a memory for the odd woman and located the stairs. It was quiet on her trip down, but, maybe faintly, she could hear her humming again. The bottom of the stairs where blocked by debris. Slowly, she made her way down the pile into the moderately sized room. There was a set of large doors to her right, but they wouldn't open along with the others. She rounded the area winding back up to the left of the stairs, there was an elevator door, closed.

"A crowbar."

There was one sticking out of the debris pile. Jamming it between the two elevator doors, Isabel attempted to open them.

"Why....won't you...OPEN!"

Slipping onto the floor, she heard the sound of the metal crowbar hit the floor and a loud bang as if an explosion had gone off. Upside down, she saw one of the doors in the little hallway before the entrance disperse into pieces and chunks as it hit the ground. Her heart sped up. Doors don't blow up on their own. _Someone_ was there with her and it wasn't the humming frail lady.

"That's not the door I wanted to open." She mumbled.

Jumping up quickly and grabbing the crowbar, she clung to the wall in the shadows. Silence. Isabel could hear her uneven breathing and tried to calm it. After what seemed like an hour, one of her feet took a step forward, then another and another until she was standing over the obliterated remains of the wood that made up the door. Turning her head, she looked into the room.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six: Reflections**

_Mirror, mirror on the wall_

_Crash and break the glass and fall_

_Mirror, mirror on the wall_

_Who's the truest of them all?_

* * *

Two eyes, a mouth, a nose, hair and two shaky hands clutching a crowbar unwillingly looked back at Isabel. The image followed her every move. It was a mirror. Realizing this, her muscles slacked allowing the crowbar to fall to her side, but her breathing remained weary.

The room was vacant of any other signs of life other than the mirror and herself. Paranoid, and remembering the word 'behind', Isabel's head peeked around the mirror.

Nothing.

Isabel rearrange herself in front of the full length mirror. The mirror, she knew, obfuscated something important. As her fingers twitched, so did the ones in the mirror, identically, but still not the same. Something was off.

Again, she wiggled her hand slowly and the corresponding hand in the mirror moved just the same. She lifted up her hand, this time, to wave. The reflection copied her moves. Even though the image was her own, something deep inside her told her it wasn't. Waving faster, it kept up with her, but the faster she went, it seemed, the longer it took for her reflection to follow along.

Smiling, her reflection continued to wave at the speed Isabel was waving at moments ago, but Isabel wasn't smiling. She rarely did. Between the curved parted lips on the mirror was a web of gruesomely long stitches. The upper and lower jaw bleed as the metal stitches protruded through them**. **The figure made no attempts to stop waving or smiling; it behaved as if nothing was happening, as if murderous weapons weren't scraping past her bones or piercing her skull. Blood dripped slowly, at the tempo of a leaky faucet.

Meanwhile, Isabel had brandished her weapon, in an insane panic, above her head, ready to obliterate the disgusting figure ahead of her. The familiar pulse rang in her ears, racing. She waited for enough courage to begin when the stitches bursted through the eyes splattering blood on Isabel herself and she struck.

A crash was emitted at the point of contact in the center of the mirror, but not breaking the mirror entirely. Isabel glared at it with fueled hatred from a growing source and lifted the crowbar once again, but this time, when she swung, she stopped, right before metal met glass. The eerie image stopped moving and stopped smiling and stood up from its crumpling state. It was pointing in front of itself, behind Isabel.

"_Isabel."_ The voice giggled, mocking.

Isabel turned her head back to the mirror. Nothing was behind her or ahead of her. The unearthly figure that used to stand before her was gone and whatever she was pointing at wasn't there either.

A headache that was only knocking on her door earlier, bursted through in the silence. She dropped her only defense in order to cradle her head.

"Ah!" She began to moan.

It only got worse, so worse that she wasn't aware of the nearing presence. It loomed, _it glowed_, over her body that was burdened to the floor. Only aware because of the red phosphorescence, Isabel craned her neck upwards. She was a sitting duck.

A tall, reddish figure clothed in human skin and blood stood by her with an insanely large knife-like weapon in one hand. It was so close, she could hear its shallow breathing behind the extensive large pyramid structure on his shoulders. It was menacing, malicious, malevolent and wicked all in one being.

Isabel has heard stories of beings, evil ones, but never imagined any one of them being this pure evil in one person. It radiated from the being all around. Bogeyman was as close as it ever got at best to being that evil.

In a blink of an eye, it lifted the sword smashing against her chest forcing her into the mirror. The impact caused the mirror to break and shatter as she crashed to the ground, but the ground was only solid for a moment and she began to fall. The creature watched her decent into darkness, unmoving.

As she fell, she could hear that woman singing. It sounded like it was coming from all over, but all was blackness. Isabel watched her necklace dance in front of her eyes. It had an undulant sway, to and fro, in the air, with the melody. Somehow, the soft sounds calmed her heart in the fall.

She kept staring at the necklace and the silver medallion, death running through her mind.

Isabel believed she was going to die. It was her time like every other person. The medallion's smooth surface reflected her suffering eyes, one and then the other. From time to time, her long brown hair obscured her view of herself, her true self, but it was quickly back again. Savoring the lady's voice, Isabel closed her eyes.

When she opened them again, the medallion was red like the balloon she encountered earlier. No, it was the balloon. It morphed and disfigured into a mocking memory before her eyes and the chain around her neck became the string. Reflexes kicked in when the string began to strangle her. Her legs flailed around, arms grasping whatever hold they could on the fragile string, in an attempt to save herself. She was choking and unable to breathe and no longer able to hear the repetitive melody.

_No, this can't be the way that I die_, Isabel thought. Contemplating her impending doom on whatever surface that lurked below, suffocation wasn't any more delightful.

The strength of Isabel's nails broke the string in two. She gasped a frightful breath and watched the red balloon fly up as if it were being reeled in like a fish on a hook. If there was such a thing as negative weight, that's what the balloon was. It was rejecting the pull of gravity like two magnets with disagreeing poles.

For the first time, Isabel dared to look down, twisting her whole body. The first thing she sensed was a damp musty area that has never left her nostrils. The second thing she sensed was water, a great lake of water. The third thing she sensed was the water flowing between her clothing and body, but she felt unharmed. The fourth thing she sensed was the distorted sound of her body clashing with water. The fifth thing Isabel sensed was, a very bitter, fouls taste, a mouth full of cold water caressing her tongue.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven: Darkness**

_Why do people desire being a child once more? Is it the untouched innocence? Or the beginning down life's path? Or the belief that good prevails over evil, that good still exists in the world? Does everyone want to undo a foolish action completed long ago? Do people not want to face their judgement and reminisce in youth and time? Time doesn't last forever, not for humans. The past is written, the present is being created, and the future is a mystery._

* * *

"_Isabel. Isabel. Wake up."_

A cooing sweet voice cause Isabel to slowly lumber out of sleep and onto her feet. She coughed allowing the excess fluids in her lungs to exit. The unmistakable flavor of the water lingered on her taste buds and her head felt like vibrating earth.

"Oh no." Isabel reacted negatively to her environment.

It was the same four walls that imprisoned her from the very beginning and she was starting to believe that they would never leave her sanity alone. Once again, the ground was damp where she had laid, but a larger mark of her body outlined the first and her clothes were still wet.

"No no no no no no no..." Her head slumped in disintegrating hope. "Why do I keep waking up in this room?"

Instinctually, Isabel closed her eyes before submerging under the water's surface transporting her into another part of Silent Hill. It probably saved her life. _Who knows what lurks beneath the water._

A loud splash of water hit the floor after she wrung her clothing. Puddles accumulated after each clothing item was forced dry and Isabel redressed herself.

"Ow..."A hand touched her neck where the string almost killed her, but no longer existed.

The whole incident seemed like a fey fantasy, completely unrealistic, and now she was back sitting on the floor in some room with a cemented door, a foggy window, and a dripping wet ceiling. Life wasn't going to get better anytime soon, or maybe not at all.

Staring across the room at the single window, she took out the photo that miraculously survived the previous event. It was intact and the words on the back were still there.

"_Where is the light in Silent Hill? Is it lost or is it hidden?" _She thought to herself, pausing. "What could it mean? What could hide light?"

She looked up again at the window. Fog.

"Fog? Fog hides light, right? But what does it hide?"She let her head hit the wall. "Ow. Bright move, Isabel."

She had no desires to stay in this room. It was cold, small, wet and creepy. Not to mention the questionable noises coming from outside. Remembering how she got out the first time, she figured it would work again a second time and stood to face the wall her hurting head was just resting on. She walked forward, slowly, with her eyes closed, but only met a solid surface inches from where she stood.

"Ugh. I closed my eyes. Why didn't I go anywhere?" Frustrated and confused, Isabel crossed her arms not liking the insanity of her predicament.

Looking at an adjacent wall, she decided to the wall for an escape, but only met the same conclusion. Then she headed for the cemented over door, her original direction of escape. Again, eyes closed, she encountered the same solid surface that made up the wall. The last wall, with the window, was the last one untested.

"I hope this works because I don't want to try going through the ceiling." Finishing the sentence, and a glance upwards, she made her way to the wall with the window.

In the darkness, she assumed she hadn't gotten anywhere. The same cold glass surface hugged the tips of her fingers. She took a deep breath, turned around and opened her eyes in one swift move.

"Oh crap."

The room she was in had the same size and placements as the last, but it was decorated with masks. There was still a window and an oddly cemented door, but the wood was painted black like the room with the candles.

Each mask had a different expression and considerable differences from the next. A moderate gap spaced them unevenly apart from each other. It felt like a circus. There was no blatant pattern or easily decipherable meaning, just randomness.

All together, there were seven.

One wall in particular had only a single mask. It was a child's face, about seven years old. It was joyful, an expression worth the innocence of youth. Short brown cut hair, rosy cheeks, and blank eyes faced Isabel's.

Two masks were on the next wall. The higher one on the wall was a person. Streaks could be seen where the tears were painted. This sadness is normally associated with the pain of disillusionment, after the younger years have passed. Looking into those dark holes, Isabel felt a twinge of sorrow that was her own, empathy. The second mask was lower to the ground. The face was an elderly person, haggard by the worries and suffering from life. Gray hair scarcely covered the deep impressions of wrinkles that accented the sagging aged skin. The hair itself could describe the tortures of life. It was plain, dull and lifeless with no volume or care. The eyes were sad too, but not as sad as the mask before it.

The following wall had two masks as well. The mask, closest to the ground of all seven and adjacent to the old hag face, was wet. It was physically wet to the touch. Isabel's fingers pushed the water between them from the mask. The whole thing was soaked. The skin felt cold and clammy. Parting the long hair out of the masks's face, Isabel noticed how terrified the person looked. It was so fearful that Isabel was taken back for a moment and quickly scanned the room, then her eyes reached on the second mask on the same wall. It was pure crimson red in both blood and anger. Some of the facial feature were recognizable in rage, but others were too disfigured to determine what they were. An aurora of hatred emanated from the mask, Isabel felt it with one hand and dared not to touch it.

The final wall was home to the last two masks of the seven. The left mask, near the bloody person, was completely white, blank, nothing but two ebony eye sockets. There was no expression, nothing extraordinary just a certain stubborn face to fight the masses of oncoming troubles. It extremely contrasted all the other masks. It was colorless and it was nothing. And then there was the final mask of the seven. The newborn's face was stained in blood. A rusted knife clung to the fleshy parts of the forehead and hair. Despite the horrible fate, the face assumed the expression of sleep, peacefulness and tainted with a hint of pain. The size was remarkably smaller than the rest, but then again...

"Is that real?"

Isabel looked closer at the child's head. It was in fact real, or as real as Silent Hill gets.

"That's so cruel!" She looked the knife up and down closely. "Is that the same knife that hit me? It must be, just a miniature version of it, but it's the same thing!"

Isabel touched her body were the Great Knife claimed its pain. Looking back up, she realized something.

"Why is this baby the only male here?" She twisted acknowledging each of the other masks.

She was right. The Child, the Old Hag, the Blank, the Depressed, the Bloody and the Drowned Mask were all women. Not a single other male figure, but the boy. Isabel stared at the boy. It seemed similar to the one in the picture, so she took it out again.

"Is this the same child? Was this the one crying?" Shuddering, a chill scurried down her spine. She felt like she was being watched.

While inspecting the room, it seemed like the masks were watching her every move, every breath of life. Out of fear and paranoia, she took them down in the order she first saw them and left the baby's head on the wall. After she gathered them, she set them on the floor with the Child Mask staring up at her. That mask made Isabel feel happy as if a long lost happiness was reconnected with her from the past. Glancing at the baby head made her feel as if something was lost forever, never to return and it brought a tear to her eye. She quickly caught it with the edge of her sleeve and tried to ignore it. Dwelling on uncertain and saddening events is unhealthy, but she did feel sorry for the kid. She would rather have her sanity than get caught up in unearthly thoughts.

Round about the room her eyes went again. This time there was no definite exit. Sitting down on the floor once again, she stared at the baby head. Then the stood back up, heading over to it. The head was _real_ and so was the _knife_. A confidant hand gripped the knife and yanked it out.

"Thank god it's real. I needed a weapon!" She slipped the knife into her jean pocket after a sigh of relief.

The baby head came to life and opened its eyes to stare up at Isabel. Blue, blue, water blue pale eyes they were that stunned her on the spot. Too frightened to move and too shocked to speak, her green as dead grass eyes fought a terrifying fight before the blue eyes swelled with tears and began to cry. The wailing sobs answered Isabel's previous question, she was able to recognize the voice from the previous sobs.

She panicked having no idea what to do, bearing the pain again was too much to relive, and she threw the head to the ground along with half the wall that was fused with it. The hidden bond was strong, but not strong enough for the boards that made the wall. Isabel had no recollection of ever seeing the two being connected, but ignored that thought when the baby stopped crying.

The only remaining noise was her own unsettling breathing. The hole in the wall opened up a pathway into a prison and the masks disappeared. She took a daring step into the unknown cell, complete darkness.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight: Light**

_When some people look into the mirror they are able to defeat themselves on a journey into self discovery while others cannot. On the brink of knowledge, don't turn back into the darkness. Follow the light, for those who don't are swallowed up in a sea of misery, forever will those who walk in darkness live without the guidance of one's self, light, and never return to happiness. Then again, what' s better, knowing horrible truths that are life or the fanciful lies that create happiness among a fog of grief?_

* * *

A light flickers on, illuminating a dreary scene.

There Isabel stands, unmoving, in a locked cell enclosing herself between gray metal bars and stone walls, the hole behind her. Beyond the bars was darkness and the light only shined upon the limited space inside the cell. There was nothing in it.

She looked back into the hole. The baby head still laid on the ground where she had tossed it earlier. It bled forming a pool of blood around its skull. Without a second thought, she quickly looked around the cell for a way out. The head on the floor was unnatural, absolutely unnatural. In her head, Isabel thought it would take a life of its own again, but this time crawling across the floor or something else...

In one of the bars on the far end, Isabel observed an odd slit in it with decorative carving surrounding it. It was a touch of life in the deathly atmosphere of the cell. Her attention was diverted when a noise from behind stole it. She swerved around to check inside the hole.

"Did that thing just move?!" There was a hint of panic in her voice as she took out the knife.

Apparently, whoever stuck the knife in the baby's head the first time around didn't quite do the job right and she was prepared to do it herself if it ever came after her. Not that she actually believed that such a thing was possible, not before entering Silent Hill.

Her blood pressure was slightly elevated now, but she was still able to think clearly despite the odd occurrences. Isabel only took a few more moments to realize that the bloody knife in her hand was the key to the cell. The key hole and the knife were the same sizes. She stuck it in, twisted, and stopped when the tumblers clicked opening the door. It slowly creaked open after a nudge with her hand from removing the knife.

Six other lights went on, flickering in a sequential order down a row in front of her. They only lit up the outside of the cells and nothing on the inside. Isabel, eager to leave the small caged area, stepped out into the open darkness.

To her left, a light went on inside the farthest cell. A small figure could be seen standing in the very center. Isabel took a step closer in its direction. In response, it stepped back. Then she walked close enough to it to touch the bars of the cell.

Her eyes caught another pair of familiar eyes. It was a young child wearing the Child Mask, but the eyes were blackened still. The long hair, innocent youthful features, and joy enveloped the wearer of the mask.

Isabel leaned her weight against the grasp she had on the bars and spoke, "Hello, I'm Isabel."

The child scurried into the shadows and out of view. It was obviously scared and or shy.

She tried again. "My name is Isabel, what's yours?"

Silence greeted her ears for a couple of moments before the child took a tentative step into the light.

"Isabel." The voice that came from behind the mask was a young girl's voice.

"Yes, I'm Isabel. What's your name?"

The girl spoke again. "Isabel." A soft higher pitched voice rang in the air, reminding Isabel of better times and places.

"Isabel?" Saying her own name left a tingling feeling on her lips, it was alien-like to speak it. "Isabel, is that your name?"

She licked dry lips as her only response was an apprehensive nod.

"Isabel, well alright. It's nice to meet you." She wiggled her fingers on the bar to let the perspiration evaporate. Nervousness set over her like a fog on a field; it was extremely unusual for her to meet someone with the name as hers.

The little girl shifted her weight and held her hands behind her back while the smiling mask stared strait ahead at Isabel.

"Do you want me to help you out of here?"

The little girl stood unmoving.

"Are you at least going to say something?"

The girl dropped her head.

"Can you help me at all?" Isabel was unsure how to handle the situation and something was making her feel uneasy.

"Maybe Isabel can help you." The girl spoke with a hint of menace.

"Isabel?" She questioned.

"Maybe you can help yourself for once Isabel." Her mask continued to smile, but it contrasted the malevolence in her tone of voice.

The little girl tilted her head to her left, Isabel's right, holding up one small finger.

"There's more to you than you know, but maybe they can help you out." The girl's finger lifted slowly and with each inch another light flickered on in the adjacent cell, and the next one to that cell and the next, until all six in the row where lit up. Her hand opened up and fell back into place entwined with the other. "Go see for yourself."


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine: Rebirth**

_As time fades, so do memories, but they are not lost forever; forgotten memories are waiting to be reborn._

* * *

Like a witch in a forest, an old woman's voice crackled in what sounded like a laugh in the distance. Isabel turned her head to face the other masked women in fear, eyes wide.

"It's so nice to see my smiling face once again."

"No, no. You made the wrong decision..."

"You're all wrong."

A choir of voices wailed, moaned and spoke to Isabel. She brushed a stray hair from her view stalling her response to the situation.

"Are you hurt...."

"What's the matter with you?"

"Are you going to come and save yourself?"

"I can feel myself becoming older..."

Frowning, Isabel walked passed each cage. It was just as she suspected. Each one was a mask wearer. Cage #2 was the Depressed Mask. The lean thin figure stood in the small area of light, face dripping with tears. As it stood, it faced Isabel to speak.

"There's nothing wrong with me is there? I can't help it. I can't stop it. I have no choice." It started to sob, collapsing to the floor. "You're me right? You can stop this! Can't you?"

Stopping, Isabel said, "I'm not you." She took another look at the frail delicate being on the floor. It was too skinny and too worn to be her own. "You're not me...right?"

Staring into the abyss created by the eye sockets of the mask reminded her of herself when she felt that deep sadness before. Those depressing feelings of sorrow, fearful anxiety and powerlessness reeked from the being and into her mind. Then the images of the baby taken from her arms made themselves known to her once again, but Isabel was sure she never had a child.

"I am you and you are me. We are all the same person, all seven of us." It spoke again.

"Seven? I only see six of you."

"No. You don't get it do you?" The being wrapped its arms around itself.

"Get what? What is there to understand! I haven't understood a thing since I woke up in this place..."

"_Silent Hill."_ The six spoke in unison, then it all went eerily quiet.

A nervous gulp escaped from Isabel, "What about Silent Hill? What's wrong with this place."

"What's wrong with _this_ place? What's wrong with _you_? Me?" The person wearing the Depressed mask spoke up.

"_Me?_ Are you saying something is wrong with me? That's insane! I'm perfectly normal!"

"Then why are you here?" The Old Hag stood with the aid of a cane. "Normal people are not dragged into this mess, _this_ town."

"Mess?" Isabel was not enjoying the shrouded answers. "What mess? Can someone tell me?"

"Tell you? You're the one who started it-" The Blank Face's monotonous voice was cut off by the Bloody Mask wearer.

"-And you're the one who'll end it."

"I haven't done anything." Isabel persistently tried to defend her innocense.

"Don't you remember, Isabel?"

"Remember what?" She walked to the Child. "Remember what? What am I supposed to remember?"

The person behind the mask stayed silent.

Isabel felt herself fall victim to frustration and rage. She banged against the bars of the cage, shaking them. Her voice raised with her emotion. "Remember what? Why won't any of you tell me?"

The Child fled to the shadows from the sudden burst of rage.

"I never asked for this. I never wanted to be here! Hell, I'm not even sure how I got here." Isabel paced from cage #1 to #6 over and over thinking.

"Don't you remember? You came here all by yourself. You drove days to get here from New York. You wanted to clear your head."

"I never drove here. And why was I trying to clear my head?"

The Old Hag sighed. "Do you really want to know?"

"She must know." The Blank face spoke walking as far as it could to stare Isabel strait into her eyes. "Let's begin, shall we?"

"Begin what?" Each person under the mask spoke rapidly, barely giving the previous speaker a chance to finish their sentence.

"You had a child Isabel. Many years ago."

"The cult forced the man upon you."

"When you refused to have a child."

"You were drugged."

"You were still young."

"It destroyed your mental stability for a while."

"Until you had to kill."

"You killed him, the baby."

"Then you relapsed and fell into madness again."

"It was the cult."

"The cult influenced you."

"They gave you no choice."

"He was the next sacrifice."

"You were his mother."

"The knife, _that_ knife, you killed him with it." The Bloody Mask pointed to the knife she had in her possession. Isabel took it out to examine it.

"Then you took his lifeless body and let it go in Taluca Lake...."

The rest of their words never reached her mind. She was lost in a sea of misery, shock and disgust. Question after unanswered question pounded in her head with every word they said. Still, no memories returned, no matter how hard she tried. Isabel just could not remember.

"Who are you? Who are all of you?" Isabel asked, tearing up, stopping their mesh of memories and words.

"Isabel. We are you." They all said in a blend of stern voices.

"Don't you see, Isabel?" The Child stood forward. "We are all a part of you, a phase you've gone through at one point or another."

"You might not remember." The Depressed said softly. "You might not want to remember. It might just be best that way."

"Remembering will hinder your life." The Drowned sat up, violently swaying her arms, speaking much louder, with each word. "Do you want to live your life like this." She pointed to her face. "I'm so damn miserable, I could kill myself right now if I wanted to. There are just some things in life we cannot control, and those things can never be repaired."

"But you've forgotten them." Breathing a sigh while dropping her head, the Old Hag continued. "It's only a matter of time until you remember."

"But the question is..."

"Do you really want to know?"

"If you do..."

"Then, release us and your memories will return to you."

"You've already opened one." The Child pointed in the direction of the cell Isabel first walked out of, cell #7.

As Isabel looked, every light went out, but the one hovering over cell #7. A horrid shape scuttled in the shadows.

"Oh, don't tell me that _thing_ came to life." Isabel gripped the handle of her knife.

The outline of the baby's head could be seen in the scarce light. It uttered a shallow cry, choking. A liquid could be heard smacking against the ground. The creature stood with limbs of metal compounds screeching against the cement surface leave deep depressions behind. A blanket of flesh was wrapped around its torso, blood still dripped from the forehead where the knife once struck and from it's mouth.

"Oh God!"

The creature grew larger and larger as light flushed over the being. Then, it bashed through the cage forcing the barred door into the other wall, completely, so it could not be removed from it. Isabel screamed completely terrified and in disbelief. The baby came back from the dead to seek revenge.

All the sudden, a siren went off causing both the baby and Isabel to shriek. Two red lights flashed barely illuminating the menacing creature heading Isabel's way. It's long arms and legs lumbered her way while she slowly fell to the ground, blacking out, but being able to hear someone say,

"_It's not time for you to remember yet."_


End file.
